A long, hard journey with roots in tribal agitation

From the small village of Mahuldiha, Naba Charan Majhi’s first tryst with politics had little to do with Odisha. In fact, the first slogans a young Majhi shouted, in his twenties in a college in Rairangpur, were for “Greater Jharkhand.” Four decades later, he is now sitting in Parliament, having won his first election from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj, one of the five seats in the state reserved for scheduled tribes, and of them, the most well known. For, Mayurbhanj is also home to Droupadi Murmu, the first tribal woman to ascend the steps of Rashtrapati Bhavan and become President of India. His victory by 219,000 votes was also representative of the BJP’s fierce inroads into the eastern state where it once struggled to find a foothold and its strengthening grip on the tribal communities.